REELING THEM IN: Poudre Learning Center reaches out to families with fishing classes in the hopes of continuing its lessons at home

Coby Mendoza, 10, checks the alignment on his fly fishing rod before stringing on the line, on Saturday at the Poudre Learning Center. The learning center was reaching out to families and the community with free fly fishing lessons, where you can learn everything about fly fishing, from setting up the rod, to casting.

15-year-old Vanyssa Mendoza, leads a lure through the guides as she prepares to start learning how to cast, on Saturday at the Poudre Learning Center in Greeley. Mendoza and her family came down to learn how to fly fish, to take advantage of all Colorado has to offer.

Bill Baker strings up his fly fishing rod, learning the basics of the sport on Saturday at the Poudre Learning Center in Greeley. Baker is new to Colorado, and was happy with the free lessons that the learning center was giving so he can go fish one of the many rivers and streams that Colorado has to offer.

• The Fly Fishing and River Ecology classes take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Saturday through May 17 at the Poudre Learning Center. Fishing trips run from May 24 and 31 with a possible overnight trip on June 7-8. The trips are at the Poudre Ponds in Greeley and up the Poudre Canyon. The classes are free and open to anyone. Equipment is provided but if you have a rod you should bring it.

• Families Investigating Science at Home hosts a monthly night class as well as self-directed activities.

For more information on both, stop by learning center, 8313 F St., or call (970) 352-1267.

Boys of the Moonshell and El Espejo

The Poudre Learning Center will present a week-long class to encourage boys and girls to explore their world and take an interest in science. Boys of the Moonshell will run June 9-13 and El Espejo, a program for girls, will run June 23-27.

The program targets middle-school students and costs $150 a student. The Poudre Learning Center offers scholarships and also asks members of the public to sponsor a student.

The hope is that the classes would reflect the diversity of Greeley/Evans District 6, but that’s not a determining factor in putting together the class, said Ray Tschillard, director of the Poudre Learning Center. The classes would use the rivers and habitat around the learning center and Weld County to spark an interest in science.

“We see a drop, a huge one, in science scores around middle school,” Tschillard said. “Some get withdrawn about it. This is a way to start connecting.”

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The day was bright, one of the first Saturdays in a while that offered sunshine rather than shivers. Over at the pond just west of the Poudre Learning Center, the water sparkled and the bullfrogs lurked and croaked. Yet the most amazing sight for Serena Mendoza may have been the wide-eyed interest of her teen daughters.

“No one even worried about their phones,” said Mendoza.

She was out with her Greeley family on April 26 at the learning center to learn how to fly fish. She, her husband, Tom, and four of their six kids — two are grown — knew how to cast and fish, but using a fly, like most romances, is tricky. But she thought her daughters, Vanyssa, 15, and Leala, 13, would especially enjoy fly fishing because of that difficulty. Fly fishing is an activity that requires a lot of attention. The kind of attention you might pay to a smartphone.

“They’re not really into just fishing,” Mendoza said. “But they really enjoyed the fly fishing. They want to be reeling it in and throwing it out.

“We’ve wanted to learn how to do this for a long time, and now this will be something for us to do as a family.”

The classes are a new offering by the Poudre Learning Center, and they represent a different direction. The learning center will always serve students and teach kids how to appreciate the outdoors and the ecology, but now they are reaching out to families as well.

“The kids get the learning here, and they love it, but then, how do we keep it going?” said Ray Tschillard, director of the learning center. “If we get their parents involved, that will really help.”

The free fly-fishing classes run every Saturday until the first weekend of June, when the center will offer an overnight fishing trip. Parents can still come this Saturday, as it shouldn’t take them too long to catch up, and they’ll spend most of their time practicing with their kids under the eyes of instructors. The learning center will provide the rods as well and a book, the “Curtis Creek Manifesto,” an illustrated guide to fly fishing.

Fly fishing is not only fun, it offers lessons about river ecology, so the kids (and the parents) can learn even when they may not realize they’re doing so, Tschillard said. That way what the learning center teaches students on a school field trip will continue on. But fly fishing is just one way the learning center hopes to reach families.

The second idea is the Families Investigating Science at Home program. Yes, it spells out F.I.S.H. This program doesn’t have the specific directon or goal of the fly-fishing program, but that’s also the idea. The program gives families the tools to explore the habitat around the learning center. The learning center will loan out vests full of supplies. By completing a self-directed task, they can earn badges, as if they were Boy Scouts.

“But families earn these badges, not just the kids,” Tschillard said. “That’s the idea.”

The idea isn’t to turn anyone into a scientist, Tschillard said. Some of the subjects include geocaching, astronomy, ecology and many others, and parents or guardians can build their vests and head out based on what they want to explore.

“We just want to get a family to understand and feel comfortable with the outdoors,” he said. “We’d really hope they would want to do a variety of things, not just one.”

Mendoza believes she’ll be back every week for more fishing tips. She and Tom also have Coby, 10, and Maximus, 6, to go with their daughters and grown kids, so it’s been a crazy ride in their 23 years of marriage.

“It’s exciting,” she said. “After all this time, we can all still do things with our children.”